Rough Music, Community Protest and the Local Press in Nineteenth-Century England

ABSTRACT E. P. Thompson, in his work, Customs in Common, published in 1991, included a chapter that considered a phenomenon with which he had been interested in much of his earlier research: rough music. Thompson described this as a means by which through the use of raucous “music” and street theatre, mockery or hostility was directed against individuals “who offended against certain community norms.” Thompson's research drew in part upon local newspaper reports in his analysis of rough music. With the digitisation of some 23 million pages of local newspapers, accessible through the British Library's newspaper archive, a much more extensive analysis of the press representation of rough music is now possible. This article revisits Thompson's work and tests his claims about the content and context of rough music in the communal regulation of behaviour contravening local societies’ norms. The article explores inter alia, the changing nature of rough music over time in terms of its focus and incidence, and its regional character. Attention is paid to the way in which rough music itself was reported and how attitudes towards its implementation varied within the press.